


lovesick

by astroblemish



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe, Domestic Fluff, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-18 11:12:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11289552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astroblemish/pseuds/astroblemish
Summary: Having an alien for a boyfriend can sometimes come in handy. (Ortentacle-y, depending on who you ask.)





	lovesick

**Author's Note:**

> sorry to the mods, to the tentacle trope as a whole, and to anyone who reads this, because you all deserve better and i apologise.

* * *

 

Winter comes with the arrival of an elevated gas bill and a bitter bite to the air; by the fifth day of the season Kyungsoo already finds himself layered up from head to toe, reaching out in the middle of the night in a search for warmth and finding it pretty easily. By the sixth day of the season Kyungsoo is drinking coffee more than usual in an attempt to stay warm, refilling it with the pot in the staff kitchen, and by the seventh day of the season, Kyungsoo is being sneezed on in the subway.

Absolutely. Fantastic.

Which means by the eighth day of the season, Kyungsoo is in bed, coughing and miserable, and his boyfriends are maybe too good for him.

“You’re going to get sick too,” he croaks out, as Jongdae shrugs unapologetically, pressing a cool cloth against Kyungsoo’s forehead to help control his temperature.

“I’ll be fine,” Jongdae says, and winks, because he’s lame like that. “I have a great immune system.”

“You have a great everything,” Chanyeol inputs, leaving a tray of steaming soup by the side of their bed.

“Also true,” Jongdae returns, grinning as he tugs Chanyeol down by his collar, pressing their lips together.

“Don’t show me what I can’t have,” Kyungsoo groans, and then coughs into the crook of his elbow, sniffling in his own misery.

“Nice dab,” Chanyeol inputs.

“It’s 2017.” Kyungsoo complains, and Chanyeol only laughs at him, reaching out with an oversized hand to brush the hair back from Kyungsoo’s forehead.

“Careful Yeollie,” Jongdae warns, as he busies himself with the items on the tray. “You’ll get sick.”

Chanyeol snorts. “No I won’t.” He presses an obnoxious kiss to Kyungsoo’s forehead to prove a point, ending it with a pointed _mwah_. “I can’t catch a human disease, obviously.”

To tell Kyungsoo and his boyfriend, Jongdae, five years ago, that in the near future they would begin housing a questionably illegal alien in their home in order to meet an increase in rent, and eventually even fall in love with it, Kyungsoo probably would have just laughed.

Fate is funny like that.

“That’s true,” Jongdae hums, assessing, as he reaches forward to help Kyungsoo sit up, putting pillows behind him. “Can you even get sick?”

Chanyeol nods grimly, staring faintly into the distance. “Our snot is bioluminescent. It’s not pretty.”

“There’s something I never needed to know,” Kyungsoo mumbles, and smiles weakly as Jongdae holds a spoonful of soup up.

“Here comes the airplane,” he teases, but Kyungsoo obliges --because he’s kind of whipped like that. Jongdae and Chanyeol could probably get Kyungsoo to do anything if they asked hard enough; sometimes Kyungsoo wonders if they're oblivious to the fact, or just too kind to test it.

“Maybe we could watch a movie?” Chanyeol offers, as Jongdae grins, pleased, and continues spoon-feeding Kyungsoo --despite his own reluctance, his muscles _are_ too sore to move. Kyungsoo is reminded of when Chanyeol had first come to earth, bright pink and sporting the clothes from the 70’s. (TV reception is bad in space, apparently; it comes a little too late, meaning Chanyeol had been a little behind on the trends.) Chanyeol had held spoons up the wrong way around and had said things like _perhaps_ and _whom_ and _funky_ before Jongdae had sat him down and said that _no one fucking talks like that, dude._ In hindsight, it had been very endearing.

“I want to watch _Arrival_ ,” Kyungsoo sniffs, and Chanyeol just looks at him, huffing. “What? I’ve heard it’s good.”

“C’mon Yeollie,” Jongdae goads, nudging Chanyeol’s ribs --or where he _would_ have ribs, if he were human-- with his knuckles. “Kyungsoo’s sick-- indulge him.”

“Fine,” Chanyeol sighs, and the feather-like antennae above his ears flick in annoyance before disappearing back beneath his pastel, rainbow hair. “But if you tell me to shut up for complaining about how inaccurate the spaceships are--”

“Then you can say I told you so,” Jongdae replies, and takes the tray back into the kitchen as Chanyeol connects his laptop to the TV, scrolling through to find the movie on Netflix disgruntledly. Kyungsoo flings the covers off of himself in a sudden bout of fever heat, and as soon as it comes it dissipates into shivers, leaving him a sweaty, aggravated mess.

“Cold?” Chanyeol asks, and Kyungsoo nods weakly so Chanyeol quickly pulls the covers over him again and nestles himself into Kyungsoo’s side, wrapping his arms around him. It doesn’t exactly help, temperature-wise, but it does make Kyungsoo feel warm in an entirely different kind of way, so he’ll cope for now.

“I can’t believe you started a Kyungsoo cuddle pile and you didn’t invite _me_ ,” Jongdae says, mockingly aghast, and Kyungsoo rolls his eyes even as Jongdae clambers over him on all fours, smushing himself between Kyungsoo and Chanyeol, forcing them to break apart. “I’m the cuddliest out of all of us.”

“Cuddliest is not a word,” Chanyeol says, matter of factly, and snuggles into Jongdae just that little bit further before frowning. “... Is… it?”

“I think it is actually,” Jongdae says. “Huh.”

“Your earthen languages never fail to confuse me,” Chanyeol says, and when Jongdae looks at him pointedly, corrects it to: “I mean.... Uh… this language shit is fucked dude, I’m so lost.”

“Much better,” Jongdae says, satisfied, and leans up to kiss Chanyeol’s nose, which causes him to scrunch it embarrassedly.

“We going to watch this movie or not?” Kyungsoo complains, kiss-starved, elbowing Jongdae in the side through the covers. “I’m sick and miserable and want to be entertained.”

Jongdae groans as he sits up as if it’s the hardest thing in the world; Kyungsoo hides his smile behind the bed sheets.

“Fine,” Jongdae sighs, hitting play on the laptop by the foot of the bed and nestling his head into the crook of Kyungsoo’s neck. “But if I get sick it’s your fault.”

“Don’t say I didn’t tell you so,” Kyungsoo mumbles, and in the warmth of Jongdae pressed against his side, and Chanyeol’s fingers carding lightly through his hair, forgets about the movie and the sickness and his general misery altogether.

 

 

 

 

 

“Fuck,” Jongdae whines the next morning, coughing into the crook of his elbow.

“Nice dab,” Chanyeol says, at the same time Kyungsoo manages, “Told you so.”

 

 

 

 

 

So it turns out that having your extra-terrestrial boyfriend look after you and your also-sick very-human boyfriend is not a great plan of action, because Chanyeol doesn’t exactly _do_ human biology, and half the symptoms he reads off of medicine he doesn’t quite understand.

Which means Kyungsoo has to croak out instructions in between coughing to death because Jongdae has that type of man-sickness that means he can’t handle sneezing without thinking that he has a terminal illness. Kyungsoo becomes acquainted with the dirty tissues by the head of the bed, Chanyeol's frantic panicking, and Jongdae’s potent _why'_ s and _god'_ s beside him before it’s even eleven a.m.

“I am so not cut out for this,” Chanyeol sighs, flustered, as he squints to read the proper dosage on the back of the medicine bottle.

“Maybe you should’ve gone back to Mars after all,” Kyungsoo jokes dryly, coughing into the back of his hand. Chanyeol frowns.

“Mars is cool I guess,” he says, shrugging as he picks up a few scrunched-up tissues and flicks them into the wastebasket. “But you guys are a lot better.”

Chanyeol had come for research in order to see if it was worth making contact with humans; after Jongdae had shown him a couple of news articles and the trending twitter tags, Chanyeol had ultimately decided that no, no it was not.

He’d decided to stay though.

Lovesick sap.

“Hear that Soo?” Jongdae says, because even when he’s on death’s row, he’s still able to be an asshole, apparently. “I think he likes us.”

“When you’re weak and vulnerable,” Chanyeol teases, poking Jongdae’s cheek, who swats the hand away half-heartedly. “All the better to probe you with, my dear.”

Jongdae snickers, Kyungsoo groans, Chanyeol grins in satisfaction. It’s all fairly routine.

“I’m hungry Yeollie,” Jongdae whines, rubbing at his throat. “Make me some soup.”

“Make _us_ some soup,” Kyungsoo corrects, and when Chanyeol looks at him, withers and adds, “Please?”

Chanyeol smiles satisfactorily, and relents all the same, leaving the bedroom door wide open, allowing Kyungsoo to watch him fumble about in the kitchen.

“Work is gonna suck when I have to go back,” Jongdae complains, voice muffled by his pillow. Kyungsoo hums and stretches out across the bed, feeling the way Jongdae softens into his arms instinctively.

“Maybe we should just be sick forever,” Kyungsoo mumbles. “Let Chanyeollie take care of us for eternity.”

Jongdae hums. “Yes and we can pay the bills with all the money we earn from…” He trails off, frowning.

“... an illegal self-managing drug pedalling business?” Kyungsoo suggests, on a whim.

“Extravagant but oddly badass, I’ll take it.” Jongdae noses the side of Kyungsoo’s neck, tucking his chin into his shoulder, humming in thought. If it were anyone else, Kyungsoo would so _not_ be up to touching right now --but it's Jongdae, so he is. Always. “Considering we're both sick, there's nothing wrong with making out now, right--”

“ _No_ ,” Kyungsoo says without even _thinking_ about it, and Jongdae’s accompanying snicker at least lets him know that it had been a joke; if not a bad one.

“Soup’s done,” Chanyeol says, balancing a couple of items precariously between his hands; two spoons in one, one bowl in the other, and the second bowl of soup…

… On a tentacle.

“ _Chanyeol,_ ” Kyungsoo scolds, sighing. “What did we say about tentacles near food?”

“I didn’t want to have to make two trips!” He argues, as the tentacle protruding from the base of his shirt extends, placing the bowl of soup by the bedside table. “It’s not like it _touched_ the food--”

Jongdae exhales, long-suffering. “We don’t put _our_ dicks near _your_ food-- why should you do it to us?”

“But that’s _different!_ ” Chanyeol argues, pouting. “My tentacles are just extra appendages and only _one_ of them is genitalia and I didn’t _use_ that one, _obviously_ \--”

“You can barely handle two arms most of the time I don’t get how you handle--” Jongdae pauses, counting on his fingers. “Ten.”

“Because the other eight are _tentacles_ , not _arms_ ,” Chanyeol explains, as if it’s a justification at all, rolling his eyes. “And they have separate nervous control centres okay I-- don’t you know anything about cephalopods?”

Jongdae squints. “Can’t say I do, no.”

“I mean they’re basically just like octopus arms, it’s the same sorta system,” Chanyeol continues, as Kyungsoo and Jongdae separate and sit up so that Chanyeol’s tentacles can… pass them their soup bowls… lucky them. “The only difference is the fact that there are only suckers at the top, see?”

To prove his point, he waves a blue tentacle in front of Kyungsoo’s and Jongdae’s faces respectively --because that’s really something appetizing, especially when you’re ill-- showcasing the fact that the tentacles only have suckers at the tip, not along the whole length.

“Is it bad that I want calamari now?” Jongdae says, and Chanyeol pales as his tentacles zip back beneath his shirt in record speed, antennae drooping. Jongdae smirks triumphantly. “Works every time…”

“How would you like it if I just started eating a bunch of hands,” Chanyeol mutters, frowning when Kyungsoo shudders suddenly. “Cold again?”

“A little,” Kyungsoo admits, and sighs when Chanyeol presses a hand against his forehead, overbearingly hot in comparison.

“Kyungsoo’s really warm,” he tells Jongdae. “I don’t think that’s a good thing.”

“It isn’t.” Jongdae says, and hobbles out of bed, causing Chanyeol to frown at him worriedly. “We should cool him down.”

“ _You’re_ really warm too,” Chanyeol adds, pushing Jongdae back down onto the bed without much force, much to Jongdae’s obvious annoyance. “I’ll go get some water.”

Chanyeol picks up the pitcher by the bed and the glasses at either bedside table with three tentacles, zipping out the door.

“He’s too good to us,” Jongdae mutters, as he curls up back beneath the covers, hugging a pillow against his chest.

“He is,” Kyungsoo agrees, sniffling as Chanyeol comes back in with a filled jug and a bowl of water with wet cloths, demanding that they both rehydrate because that’s important to humans, according to his observations. Inferior species and whatnot.

“Your hands are too hot,” Jongdae whines, pushing Chanyeol’s fingers away from his face as he snivels and curls around, kicking the covers off his legs and grunting. “Why are martians always so hot?”

“I’m actually considered above average in terms of looks back home,” Chanyeol says, grinning, which only earns him a sickly groan from Jongdae. “Sorry. Couldn’t help it.”

“You’re the worst,” Jongdae whines, and Kyungsoo can see the beads of sweat trailing down his hairline, sticking the blonde strands to his cheek.

“I’m the best and you owe me,” Chanyeol corrects, booping Jongdae’s nose affectionately with the end of a tentacle. “When you’re not too busy dying, of course.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Jongdae says wryly, wiping the slime off the end of his nose and watching as Chanyeol dips the face washer into cool water and wrings it, brushing it gently along Kyungsoo’s face. “Can’t believe I’m being neglected like this.” Jongdae mumbles, causing Chanyeol to roll his eyes, shirt rippling as more tentacles creep out from beneath the hem.

“Multitasking,” Chanyeol explains, as one of his extra appendages reaches forward to wring the other cloth and begin brushing it over Jongdae’s forehead as Chanyeol’s shapeshifting mimicry of human hands focus on Kyungsoo instead.

“Please tell me this is a fever dream,” Jongdae explains, as Chanyeol only grins down at Kyungsoo, continuing to allow his tentacles to brush Jongdae’s sweaty hair from his face and help cool him down. “This feels like what hentai aftercare would look like.”

“Two hands are _so_ not enough to take care of two people,” Chanyeol states determinedly, allowing another tentacle to stick a thermometer in Kyungsoo’s mouth --which is honestly, _bewildering_ \-- and continuing to fuss with the tissues on the mattress, refilling the glasses of water by the bedside table with a half-empty pitcher all at fucking once, with varying limbs. “And stop pretending that you don’t watch hentai.”

“Well obviously I don't need porn when I live with my two boyfriends,” Jongdae says, scoffing. “And also, fuck you.”

“Does hentai even have aftercare?” Kyungsoo asks, but gets no answer as Chanyeol frowns at the thermometer reading, thrusting it at Jongdae and bickering with him about… something. The medicine is kicking in and kind of making Kyungsoo drowsy, way too out of the loop. A tentacle passes him a tissue, and Kyungsoo takes it gratefully, blowing his nose.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but--” Kyungsoo yawns, rubbing at an eye. “--Your tentacles are actually pretty handy.”

“More like pretty... tentacle-y…” Chanyeol says, and Kyungsoo doesn’t even hesitate before whacking him in the stomach, feeling the way the skin just kind of… ripples, rather than the solid thud of human flesh. “ _Ow_.”

“You deserved that.” Kyungsoo says plainly, while Jongdae adds, _definitely_. Kyungsoo sighs, and a tentacle rests across his forehead, oddly gentle. It’s weird, actually, because Chanyeol’s tentacles are cool where his skin is warm, a little moist, maybe, but kind of relaxing all the same; it’s still just Chanyeol, at the end of the day, even if Kyungsoo still sometimes struggles with the whole, my-boyfriend-is-an-alien thing on occasion. It may be an alien limb, but it's _his_ , in the end, so Kyungsoo can deal with the distant grossness.

So long as it’s not the dick tentacle, at least.

“I’m a nice person that deserves nice things,” Chanyeol mutters, and as Kyungsoo realises that for the past few hours he hasn’t once even thought about how tired he feels or how sore, too caught up in Jongdae curled up beside him and Chanyeol in the middle, over compensating in order to take care of his dumb human boyfriends, Kyungsoo thinks that maybe Chanyeol is.

“You’re not even a person,” Jongdae counters. Chanyeol hits him in the face with a tentacle.

 

 

 

 

 

By the eleventh day of winter Kyungsoo is out of bed and back to work again (yay) with Jongdae not too far behind. He’s also deliriously in love with both of his idiot boyfriends but, then again, that’s not really a new sort of thing.

There’s also a wad of glowing blue snot waiting for him in the bathroom sink.

“Told you so.” Jongdae smirks.

Chanyeol collapses onto the mattress with a groan.

“We don’t have eight extra arms to help, but--” Kyungsoo pushes the hair back from Chanyeol’s forehead, smiling at the way his antennae flick instinctively as Kyungsoo leans down to kiss the bare skin, gently. “Hopefully four are enough.”

“If it’s you two,” Chanyeol mumbles, as he takes Kyungsoo’s hand into his own and starts fiddling with his fingers absentmindedly before coughing, groaning all over again. Jongdae coos affectionately. “Then it’s enough.”

Kyungsoo is inclined to agree.

 

* * *

 


End file.
